Tuesday, February 3, 2015

New Camshaft Bearings

In the previous post, I talked about my choice of camshaft and how it compared to the one I traded in, but now I turn my attention to where it sits in the block. When I bought the block, it was in pretty good condition and most of the things that needed doing to it were already done. Except for one that is... I noticed that the camshaft bearings were a bit rough around the edges, or to be more precise, a bit rough around the surfaces.

Again, like so many aspects of what I am doing, I don't have enough experience to make a judgement call as to whether it's okay or if it's knackered. And in terms of getting advice from other people more experienced than myself, it's kind of difficult to drag the whole engine block somewhere for someone to have a look. Either way, I think it would be wise to change them now while I can, as discovering they are knackered after the engine is back in the car would be a nightmare.

This leads me to the second problem... I don't know how to change them! Looking at the two outer bearings, they might just be dooable. As these are accessable from the outside of the block, I might be able drive out the old bearings, and maybe just about drive the new ones in.

Assuming I hadn't damaged the outer bearings by now, I would need to move onto the one on the inside of the block, highlighted in the picture below.

Now this is where it would get really tricky, due to the restricted access getting the old bearing out and the new one in look very difficult. Even if, by some miracle I managed to get all the new bearings in without wrecking them, I would have no way of knowing if they were aligned with each other.

Plus I have also read that once they are in, they would need reaming to match the camshaft you are planning to use. So for all these reasons, I thought it best just to send them to 'W. Brown's' in Halifax and have them done properly.

Leaving the block and camshaft with them for a few days, they not only changed and reamed the bearings, they also chemically cleaned the block which was a bonus as it would have taken me ages to get it ready for paint myself.

Well worth the money to have the piece of mind that the job is done properly.